(2006-11-01) Resnick Google Talk Video

Mitchel Resnick gave a talk at Google about Educating Kids.

• kids need practice developing Design thinking (Iterative D And D)

• Lego Mind Storms initiatives tend to be mostly boys (even after big attempts at attracting girls, they only end up being 30%). His theory is that the projects tend to end with Zero-Sum robot competitions, which turns girls (Women) off. Which led to Pico Cricket.

  • he showed a few Pico Cricket creations. One problem with these kits (like with Lego) is that you can only have 1 instantiation at a time. So you build 1 thing, and then you're either done, or you have to take it apart to build something else. (Or you spend another $250.)

• Scratch is an attempt to encourage the same kind of experimentation, but in pure software/media.